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In the middle of 1928 the law expropriating religious edifices was applied to the Mashriqu'l- Adhkar of Ishqabad. The use of this edifice as a house of worship, however, was continued, under a five- year lease, which was renewed by the local authorities in 1933, for a similar period. In 1938 the situation in both Turkistan and the Caucasus rapidly deteriorated, leading to the imprisonment of over five hundred believers-- many of whom died-- as well as a number of women, and the confiscation of their property, followed by the exile of several prominent members of these communities to Siberia, the polar forests and other places in the vicinity of the Arctic Ocean, the subsequent deportation of most of the remnants of these communities to Persia, on account of their Persian nationality, and lastly, the complete expropriation of the Temple itself and its conversion into an art gallery. (361:2) In Germany, likewise, the rise and establishment of the Administrative Order of the Faith, to whose expansion and consolidation the German believers were distinctively and increasingly contributing, was soon followed by repressive measures, which, though less grievous than the afflictions suffered by the Baha'is of Turkistan and the Caucasus, amounted to the virtual cessation, in the years immediately preceding the present conflict, of all organized Baha'i activity throughout the length and breadth of that land. The public teaching of the Faith, with its unconcealed emphasis on peace and universality, and its repudiation of racialism, was officially forbidden; Baha'i Assemblies and their committees were dissolved; the holding of Baha'i conventions was interdicted; the Archives of the National Spiritual Assembly were seized; the summer school was abolished and the publication of all Baha'i literature was suspended.
(361:3)
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